While it is quite common to clean phonograph records with brushes and cloths, a more convenient cleaning device of U.S. Pat. No. 4,166,626 (Sandor et al.) has been on the market for several years. The Sandor device comprises an elongated arm, one end of which is formed to engage the spindle of a phonograph turntable. When so engaged, an elongated porous cleaning pad mounted on the underside of the arm extends radially across the working surface of a record on the turntable. A bottle of cleaning fluid is rotatably connected to the arm.
To clean a record, the bottle is briefly depressed to open a valve in a cylindrical housing which is integral with the arm. This allows cleaning fluid to flow into the porous cleaning pad. Then while using the bottle as a handle, the arm is rotated around the record. As suggested in the Sandor patent, the cleaning fluid preferably includes a lubricant and an anti-static agent.
The Sandor device haphazardly supplies cleaning fluid to the porous pad, and the portion of the pad immediately beneath the bottle is quickly saturated. The fluid tends to leak both through and around that portion of the pad before reaching its radially outward extremity. This is both messy and wastes the fluid. Furthermore, the difficulty of saturating the radially outer extremity of the porous cleaning pad leaves some records poorly lubricated at their outer grooves where lubricant is most needed. The Sandor device is rather expensive to manufacture and assemble and so has been sold at a price higher than many potential customers are willing to pay, considering its shortcomings.